mach1.9pants
Hero
Just jumped on to say there is nothing in that I do not like a lot
D&D Next Chat Transcript (Mike Mearls & Jeremy Crawford)
am181d
Adventurer
Dude. This is the first set of playtest rules. There will be others, as already announced. Rules down the road will have character creation.
I think I have exactly one misgiving about using pregens for the initial playtest.
Let's say that we play through all 10 levels with the pregens. All goes well, and there is a general consensus that everything works well and is well balanced.
Then we get the character creation rules and find out that the fighter's stats required some extremely lucky rolls, the rogue was optimized by an expert with the system, and the casters were severely gimped compared to other options that they could have taken.
If that were to happen, our conclusions from playtesting with the pregens would be completely invalidated. Either that, or the character creation rules would need to be tweaked -- but would that be possible at that point?
Let's say that we play through all 10 levels with the pregens. All goes well, and there is a general consensus that everything works well and is well balanced.
Then we get the character creation rules and find out that the fighter's stats required some extremely lucky rolls, the rogue was optimized by an expert with the system, and the casters were severely gimped compared to other options that they could have taken.
If that were to happen, our conclusions from playtesting with the pregens would be completely invalidated. Either that, or the character creation rules would need to be tweaked -- but would that be possible at that point?
frankthedm
First Post
Thankfully it sounds like 5E is moving away from the tracking every single square of the battlefield that dragged out 3E and 4E combat.
hafrogman
Adventurer
I would be absolutely stunned if the premade characters were not built using either point buy or an array.
I also expect all the premades will be made using the "default" character builds, not something that required either extreme system expertise or passing up obvious choices.
Character creation is by far the easiest thing to tweak at the end of development. Change how combat works or skills work and you need to change ever class that has skills or will ever enter combat. Change how a specific feat or class ability functions, and for the most part that's all that needs to be edited.
But also, this is, as others have said, merely the first step. They said character customization will roll out this summer. So sometime between June 21st and September 21st we'll be able to start toying with those rules. But they've also said no releases 2012 . So there's still time for playtest, feedback and revisions once we get that part of the playtest rolling.
Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
It looks like the direction they are taking with a good numnber of things suggests they are getting a larger amount of feedback from players who like 4E mechanics. I am wondering if that is because they are primarily getting playtesters who are players of 4E. I am also wondering if the audience of this coming edition will wind up being mostly 4E players moving forward from 4E to this new edition and that the lack of feedback from non-4E players/lapsed players is going to wind up producing an edition that doesn't draw lapsed players back to D&D thus not addressing the problem WotC wished to address, that of recapturing lapsed players.
Now one could argue that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and if lapsed players don't participate in the playtests in large enough numbers to influence the design process then that is their loss, but I'm not sure that serves WotC's ends which was suggested to be the broadening of the new edition's audience to include current players and lapsed players. I'm wondering if they are considering this potential disparity by gauging how much of their feedback is coming from current players versus those more representative of the portion of the market they are trying to recapture.
Even if they are getting low amounts of feedback from lapsed players, possibly because many are taking a wait and see what happens stance, they might be wise (if they really want to appeal to lapsed players) to cast a more discerning eye on the source of the feedback they are getting and be sure it is balanced not in regard to who they are drawing in for the playtest but based on who they hope to draw back in as players overall.
If they indeed produce a new edition that merely carries a portion of the current players forward (some not seeing enough changes to switch), and draws only a small portion of players from the lapsed player pool, they might be in danger of coming out the other side with an even smaller market share than they have at present. And thet wouldn't serve anyone since they might pull the plug even faster than this last time around.
Now one could argue that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and if lapsed players don't participate in the playtests in large enough numbers to influence the design process then that is their loss, but I'm not sure that serves WotC's ends which was suggested to be the broadening of the new edition's audience to include current players and lapsed players. I'm wondering if they are considering this potential disparity by gauging how much of their feedback is coming from current players versus those more representative of the portion of the market they are trying to recapture.
Even if they are getting low amounts of feedback from lapsed players, possibly because many are taking a wait and see what happens stance, they might be wise (if they really want to appeal to lapsed players) to cast a more discerning eye on the source of the feedback they are getting and be sure it is balanced not in regard to who they are drawing in for the playtest but based on who they hope to draw back in as players overall.
If they indeed produce a new edition that merely carries a portion of the current players forward (some not seeing enough changes to switch), and draws only a small portion of players from the lapsed player pool, they might be in danger of coming out the other side with an even smaller market share than they have at present. And thet wouldn't serve anyone since they might pull the plug even faster than this last time around.
Li Shenron
Legend
While I like almost everything from the transcription, I had this same feeling when I read that the "overwhelming" majority of feedback was in favour of at-will spells, even if it's just cantrips...
I am not against at-will magic, but I really hope it is one option. It is OK for to have some wizards which toss around prestidigitations all the time, and if they can then I presume most of them in fact would do that to help them with houseworks and daily activities. But I don't want that to be the default for every wizard, otherwise it might automatically give a certain feel to all campaign settings, that spellcasting somehow always starts from the little tricks, which means the world around expects those tricksters to be fairly a normal presence.
Matt James
Game Developer
I'm not sure if you're ignoring what others and myself have said, or if you just want to argue. Character creation playtesting will surely come in the future. It is not, however, crucial at this point. The game is in it's infancy. It is no where near publication and WotC is doing everything it can to make sure feedback is targeted and concentrated.
I'll repeat: At this stage of the game's development, character creation isn't something that needs to be looked at by the community as a whole. Once they have the core of the game smoothed out the way they think it should be, based on playtest feedback, they can focus on other areas.
Despite what the Internet says, WotC has a staff of professional game designers that are milling through all of the feedback that has already been provided, in addition to their internal data. Next week, the public playtest will dump streams of additional data. This is good for the game, and a healthy way for WotC to interact with the consumer. Let them do their work.
Why won't you give the game a fair shake?
That's a little difficult to work around though isn't it?
WOTC: We made a game that after a year of playtesting and feedback is as close to the publics wants and needs in every way...
Lapsed D&D player: Yeah, well it's not what I wanted?
The point being if you are connected to D&D in any way, I figure by now you've heard WOTC are up for a new edition- and they're looking for feedback. Chasing Pathfinder- the home for some of the lapsed D&D players, perhaps.
So what's WOTC to do, second guess the people who are not bothered enough to provide feedback, or get involved, or else try and guess what they'd like in the new edition.
I see what you're saying and all, and I don't want to come across as harsh but what are your suggestions- other than shouting it from every rooftop- D&D is getting a new edition, if you're interested then feedback is important, come one come all.
I guess the thought is with the modular settings then any iteration can be replicated to some extent- but if you don't say anything, sit on the sidelines. Or worse still come along a year later and say I didn't vote for that when the truth is you didn't vote at all...
WOTC are going to listen to the numbers (+ intuition, game desigher-fu etc).
